


Out There

by Deannie



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1995-07-14
Updated: 1995-07-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 16:23:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully's disappearance is proving difficult for all her loved ones. Pre-One Breath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out There

**Author's Note:**

> Brian Callahan is an OMC I introduced in Lincoln in the Show.

Fox Mulder sat at his partner's favorite diner--alone. It had been more than two and a half months now, and the will to keep going was getting harder to summon up all the time.

Dana Scully was gone, and there was every possibility that she was never coming back. He cursed silently, taking another sip of the coffee he barely tasted.

"Hey, Spooky." The tired voice belonged to a blond giant with gentle eyes. Special Agent Brian Callahan sat down across the table from him, not waiting for an invitation. "How are you doing?"

Mulder shrugged.

"That good, huh?" Brian signaled the waitress to bring over another coffee. "Any more news?"

Mulder snorted bitterly. "There's never any more news, Brian." He raised cold, dead eyes to his friend. "She's really gone. And I can't even figure out _why._ "

Brian nodded sympathetically. He and Dana had been lovers off and on now for a year. Her disappearance was wearing on him more and more everyday. It almost made him understand what made Fox Mulder the way he was. After only three months of Dana's unresolved absence, he was climbing the walls. Mulder had been going through the same thing over his sister for going on twenty-two years now.

Intellectually, Brian knew Dana had to be dead. A federal agent, kidnapped by unknown assailants--everyday she was missing was another nail in the coffin. Except that there was no body in it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hoped she would come back. It was like the dreams he had had for years after the death of his family, where their deaths had been the dream, where they were back with him, happy and safe. He hoped she was out there somewhere, but not with any real conviction.

Not like Mulder, he thought. The agent had never stopped trying to find out _something._ He had used every avenue open to him, had even driven the wrong way down a few that were closed. He had come up with exactly nothing, and desperation was starting to set in.

Mulder leaned forward slightly, asking the question he always asked when Brian saw him these days. "Have your friends come up with anything?"

Brian shook his head, watching sadly as Mulder's face fell. Brian Callahan had to be the best connected agent in the FBI. He knew everyone, had powerful friends, but all of it was useless against the shadows at work here. "Spook, you know I would have told you. As always, the information is just not available. Either nobody knows, or nobody can say."

Mulder nodded angrily, playing his fingers along the top of his cup. "Her mother called me yesterday."

Brian nodded. He had met Margaret Scully a few months before Dana's disappearance. He liked her, a lot. She reminded him of his own mother, now twenty-five years in her grave.

Mulder pushed his cup away desperately, not noticing the splash of coffee that ran down the side. "She wants me to come with her to..." He took a deep breath. "To pick up Scully's gravestone."

Brian nodded. "It's been three months, Spooky. It's about time--"

Mulder sat back, glaring. "It is _not_ about time, Brian. We don't even have a body--"

"We may never have a body, Mulder," Brian reminded him gently. "Her family has to move on somehow."

Mulder gazed miserably into the middle distance. "But what if she's not dead? What if she's out there... somewhere..." He cursed and sipped at his cooling coffee.

Brian sighed. Out There. Fox Mulder's mantra, his _raison d'etre._ Samantha was Out There, the "Truth" was Out There, and now Dana Scully was Out There. Out There was this place where you could put all the things, all the people, you had lost, that place you could pretend that you could get to, maybe, someday.

When Out There was finally discovered, it would be better than Heaven.

"Are you going to go with her?"

Mulder snorted. "She's her mother," he said simply. "I have to go. It's just that..."

"It's just that you're afraid that this will prove she's really gone," Brian said gently.

Mulder glared up at him. That was exactly the problem, but he did not need Brian reinforcing it. Callahan was perhaps as close to a good friend as Mulder let himself have. The similarities between them were almost eerie--their sisters, both named Samantha, both lost at the age of eight; their relationships to Sharon Raese, Mulder her lover, Brian her partner, both in love with her in their own ways.

Actually, Mulder mused bitterly, they were in the same situation now. Scully was his best friend, the only person in the world he trusted, and Brian was clearly more serious about her than he would ever let her know. Mulder closed his eyes and prayed to her God that he and Brian wouldn't have to go through the loss of another woman they loved.

He opened his eyes again, avoiding Brian's. "Gravestones are for dead bodies, Brian."

"Sam has a gravestone, Mulder." Brian watched him tense, about to attack, then relax as he saw the futility of it. He knew Brian was only trying to help, but it probably didn't make it any easier.

"Gravestones are a way to remember those we've lost. If Dana comes back, we can crush that gravestone, but for now, her family needs it as a reminder of her."

Mulder rose, not really understanding, not really wanting to. "She doesn't need that reminder, Brian," he said resolutely, the old longing, the old hope building again. "She's coming back."

He left Brian sitting there without another word. The blond giant remembered what he had said to Dana when she had worried for them both, "My family's dead. Sam's just... gone." Out There.

He sent up a silent prayer to God to return her.

 _Dana,_ he cried silently, _are you Out There?_

* * *  
The End


End file.
